


Neutral Territory (a story fragment)

by duckodeath



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Nicola has complicated Malcolm feelings, Post-Goolding Inquiry, and so does Julius, passing reference to suicide, unfinished in this form, written before 407 aired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:27:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckodeath/pseuds/duckodeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the hour after Malcolm's final appearance in front of the Goolding Inquiry, Nicola has to make a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neutral Territory (a story fragment)

**Author's Note:**

> Written during the week between 406 and 407 as an unposted fill for the TTOI kink meme. This particular version of this story -- now in its third iteration -- is an unfinished fragment. While I know it will never be finished in this form, there are still some images I quite like, so I figure what the hell, why not post it and see what happens. I wish it didn't end so abruptly, but that's as far as I got before I realized nope, that's it, this isn't working for the story I'm trying to tell so I'm going to have to start all over if I want more words to come. (Which I promptly did and that version was posted to the meme.)

At some point after her unexpected elevation to opposition leader they’d mutually decided Julius’s house was neutral territory.

***

If Julius was discretion itself, his house and attached land was discretion times infinity: a long private drive to keep hacks well away, a large private garden entirely screened by trees and shrubs to foil the long-lensers. There was a small pond with fish and birds. When the inquiry got to be too much and even Julius’s almost invisible presence tapping away at his laptop or his mobile on the other sofa was more than she could bear, there was a small vine covered studio where she could lie down in peace in a place with no televisions or fighting children or her husband snorting his obnoxious way through the _Financial Times_. There was only the wind, and the birds, and the splash of water and eventually the volume of the smoke alarms in her head would dim enough for her to return to the main house where a fresh plate of biscuits or a large piece of cake would be waiting and there would always be a ritual offer of tea or coffee even as Julius, careful to never look at her too closely, handed her a glass of red wine or, if she’d been gone a particularly long time, whiskey.

Julius gave her room to breathe. He had no expectations. He did not impose himself on her. He took her imposition on him as a matter of course with no hesitation or resentment. She did not think they were friends. They could spend hours together every day and barely exchange two words. It was true they had certain things in common: a loathing for very specific people called James, a shared need to sometimes just sit and stare, a profound dislike for conflict and confrontation. But what brought them together now, what brought her to his house almost every day to sit on one of his ridiculously comfortable chairs or curl up on one of his ridiculously comfortable sofas watching the inquiry unfold, picking at the piles of takeaway that appeared on a regular basis until she could not stand any of it for one second longer and had to retreat to the garden, was an almost entirely unspoken understanding about Malcolm.

He had treated them both horribly. He had repeatedly acted in appalling, unforgivable ways and repeatedly said appalling, unforgivable things and yet when they watched him sitting in the witness chair, recalled over and over again, his eloquence hampered by the constraints on his speech – swearing was as necessary to him as breathing, they both would have agreed without hesitation -- the eloquence transferred instead to the lines of his face that said more clearly than his lying words ever could that he knew they knew he was lying and he couldn’t give a fuck, Nicola just had to look over at Julius to know he felt it too: the pain like a knife slowly twisting in her gut as they watched someone they cared about deeply dying before their eyes.

Nicola was well aware it was not healthy. Was well aware it said volumes about their own damage that they could care so much about this objectively horrible man, but she didn’t give a toss. It wasn’t about approving of him. It wasn’t even about liking him. She could not put a name to exactly what it was about, but she knew she could not live with herself if she did not do everything within her power to keep him safe.

Whatever that meant.

***

_I’m finished anyway, you didn’t finish me._

He had spoken his final on-record statement into the microphone, gathered his bundle, crossed in front of the panel and disappeared from the camera’s view.

His words were open to interpretation. Nicola knew that. They might sound exactly like a man speaking his own epitaph, but Malcolm was a fighter. Malcolm might see the walls closing in (a metaphor with the strongest possible emotional resonance for Nicola) but as long as there was the slightest, slimmest, glimmer of light from the other side, he would throw ever ounce of his strength into widening the crack until he could escape. That was what made Malcolm _Malcolm_. The unrelenting Malcolm who had driven her crazy when she was a simple Secretary of State and so much crazier when she became opposition leader would never do anything stupid and _oh God no_ permanent. So grabbing her mobile right this instant and sending Sam a text, a series of texts, begging her to stay glued to his side was a gross overreaction. Just because she had a sudden and horribly vivid picture of Malcolm ducking into the gents, looking around for a hook, and taking off his belt, didn’t mean he was actually doing it. Just because it appeared Julius had had exactly the same reaction and was firing off texts of his own with startling rapidity didn’t mean there was any need to panic. To mutter _Oh God, Oh Fuck_ over and over again as she tried to get her hands to stop shaking. How could she keep Malcolm from hurting himself if she couldn’t even send a fucking legible text? How could she send a fucking legible text if she couldn’t even see the fucking screen because he’d made her cry with the set of his shoulders as he’d walked away from the table?

She was still struggling with the fucking useless keypad when she vaguely heard Julius’s phone buzz and then felt the slight pressure of his hand on her arm. He said nothing, his face gave away nothing, that was one of his gifts. He just showed her the screen. The sender was Malcolm. The message was only a single word:

_nicola_

No punctuation, no context, but she knew what the implied question was. She nodded at Julius, “Yes, yes, tell him yes.”  He nodded in return, smiled very slightly and squeezed her arm lightly in reassurance before stepping back to send the reply. When it was gone he looked at his watch.

“Thirty-seven minutes I think.”

He blinked a few time and pursed his lips, before shaking his head.

“No, actually more like forty-two.”

Julius had an uncanny ability to anticipate almost to the second the time it would take anyone to arrive and would always look up from whatever he was doing seconds before the buzzer linked to the gate at the end of the drive sounded. She liked that about him. She liked that he kept his emotions as tightly wrapped as an unopened packet of Hob Nobs. She liked that he never asked her how she felt or tried to sympathise verbally, that his only acknowledgment of her enormous messy feelings filling up his quiet private spaces was a tiny squeeze of the arm and a refill of whatever she was drinking.

Forty-two minutes. It was a long time to fret, but it was hardly any time to make a decision and there was a decision she had to make before seeing Malcolm. A decision about a question that had been hanging between them for almost as long as she had known him. A question they had gone to great trouble not to ask each other despite it hovering like a balloon bouncing off every surface and getting in the way at the most inconvenient times. A balloon that every time they batted it aside would sooner or later find its way back between them. They had come close to asking the question before – she had come closer than he had actually, but then she had to make two decisions. Was this even the time to make a decision? This was a terrible time to ask questions, to make any decisions, what was she thinking! She had to stop herself. This was the flailing. This was the voice in her head whispering whatever you decide will be wrong and you know it, you’re going to make a mistake and everyone will laugh at you, you’re only going to make things worse and humiliate yourself again, don’t say anything or do anything. She looked over at Julius, clearing the plates and glasses and bottles from the coffee table with a kind of furious concentration. He too was fretting in his own way, and that helped her keep it under control. Julius couldn’t help her directly and she would never in a million years embarrass him by asking for his advice (although it had to be said she had the oddest feeling he’d once had to make the very same decision about the very same person), but she knew whatever way she decided he would not judge her. It was enough. She had forty minutes left.

She washed her face. She ignored Julius’s faint protests about the dish washer and washed everything in the sink. That brought it down to twenty-nine minutes. She went outside and walked around the garden three times. Every time she paused at the studio door, but did not go in. Now she had eighteen minutes. She went back into the house and washed her face again. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror. She suddenly desperately wanted a cup of sweet milky tea. Julius was in the kitchen and she knew nothing would please him more than making one for her. As she pushed through the kitchen’s swinging door, all the many clocks in the house struck the hour and in the space between the various bongs and chimes was her answer. _Yes_. Yes, she would ask the question and yes, she would accept without doubt whatever answer Malcolm gave her.

She asked Julius about the tea and while it steeped, she walked around the garden once more. This time when she got to the studio she didn’t pause at the door, she walked right in. She opened the windows and lowered the blinds. She changed the sheets on the bed. She went into the tiny bathroom and looked at herself, a married woman in her late forties with the barest shreds of a political career. With four children determined to make her life a living hell and a husband she could barely stand to look at. She looked herself right in the eyes and felt no guilt. There were seven minutes left. She closed the door behind her and went back to the house.

***

Nicola sat in the kitchen drinking her tea. It was perfect. Hot and sweet and perfect. She was looking out the window counting down in her mind. Thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three... She had absolutely faith in Julius’s sixth sense. Unless something had happened, Malcolm would be there, at the gate within the next minute.

Julius was sitting opposite her pretending to read the cricket scores in the newspaper – she could tell by his uncharacteristic restlessness he wasn’t taking anything in -- when he suddenly laid the newspaper down. That was the signal. They both looked at the gate buzzer, but it stayed silent. They just had time to look at each other – she didn’t know what she looked like, but Julius’s brow was furrowed – when his mobile rang. The frown deepened when he saw the ID and heard the voice on the other end. Nicola couldn’t hear the words, but it was definitely a woman’s voice. It wasn’t Malcolm. Malcolm hadn’t come. _Oh God something had happened_ – no, wait, Julius looked relieved, it was all right. Of course, it had to be Sam on the other end. She wouldn’t have left him to cross the city by himself. She mouthed the name at Julius and he nodded back.

Finally he said, “Yes, I understand,” and ended the call.

She started to stand up, but he just shook his head.

“No, stay here. They’re here, but they came the other way –there’s another gate in the back, I’ll let them in.”

He went out the kitchen door, and she followed the pink of his shirt until it disappeared behind the trees. She was immensely grateful for Julius. For having a garden with a second hidden gate. For not asking questions. For making tea. For the straightness of his back as he walked without hesitation to bring Malcolm to a safe place. She could feel the panic at the edge of her mind trying to hammer its way in again, but she steeled herself. She had made a decision. It was the right decision. Whatever happened it was the right decision. Now she only had to see him, to touch his arms and face, to look at him and ask the question, and then she would know what to do next.

There they were. There he was. It was a hot summer day and he was wearing a suit far too dark and heavy for a July afternoon. She knew it was the same suit she’d seen him wearing less than an hour ago on the television, but seeing it in blazing sunlight was completely different than seeing it on screen where he might have been anywhere. He was still holding the notebooks. Clutching them to his chest. They paused under the trees. They were too far away for Nicola to see their faces under the swaying shadows of the leaves or distinguish any words through the open windows but from Julius’s gestures – she had almost forgotten from their own interactions that he normally used his hands to talk almost as much as Malcolm did— and the cadence of his voice he was trying to convince Malcolm to do something. Finally she saw Malcolm nod. Saw Julius guide him away from the house with a hand on his shoulder. She knew at once where Julius was taking him.

That was the way to the studio.

***

She resisted the urge to run there. She waited at the table, fists clenched, her nails digging into her palms for the few minutes it took until she saw Julius coming back toward the house, carrying the notebooks with something dark – it could only be Malcolm’s suit jacket-- draped over his arm.

If Julius had left him, he had to be all right.

She opened the door for him and he nodded his thanks, preoccupied with his own thoughts. He put the notebooks on the table and hung the jacket on the back of a chair, after extracting Malcolm’s tie from right pocket. He folded it carefully, smoothing the silk with his palm and putting it on top of the notebooks. He reached into his own shirt pocket and took out a pair of cuff-links that he carefully placed on top of the folded tie. Nicola watched fascinated at the way his long sturdy fingers touched every item with something not unlike reverence. Julius was a strange, odd man, who gave very little away with his face, but his fingers gliding over Malcolm’s tie, the care he took arranging everything just so, his utter concentration as he touched Malcolm’s possessions, the way his adam’s apple bobbed, they all told Nicola more than any words or explanations about the unexpressed emotions rolling around in that great shiny bald head.

Without any conscious thought, she reached out and touched his forearm just above the cuff of his partially rolled up sleeve. He went very still for a moment and then looked at her, looked her straight in the eyes. She’d never really been sure what colour his eyes were – she had a vague sense they were a sort of murky hazel – but with his pupils contracted into pinpoints from the bright sunlight, they were very green behind the clear lenses of his glasses. Very green, and quite sad. She knew right then he had long since worked out what she was going to ask Malcolm. He’d probably worked it out before she had and he’d taken Malcolm to the studio house because he understood the question Nicola had for Malcolm could not be answered except in absolute privacy.

She could not say thank you out loud. but she could do for him what he’s done for her earlier.  She squeezed his arm.

He shrugged and carefully dislodged her hand and said, "He's waiting for you.  You should go see him now." 

 

**Author's Note:**

> And that's as far as I got and I'm very sorry there isn't more because strange as it may sound coming from the author -- who theoretically controls these things -- I really, really want to know what happens next too.


End file.
